selinaly
Sep 11, 2010
Undergraduate / From QuestBridge App: Diversity in college community [4]
Prompt: A range of academic interest, personal perspective, and life experience adds much to the educational mix. Describe what you bring to the diversity in a college community with your experiences.
The diversity I bring to the college community comes from my observations of the world and the history of my family. I am fortunate enough to live past some of the most tragic events in life.
Having been living in the United States since 2002, I have never gotten the chance like my classmates to experience how America was like when the September 11 attack happened. I was not present when all the schools announced emergency lockdowns and dismissed the adults from their work places, and to experience the patriotism that sprang up from every American heart. I lived in a country where rapacious governments and police officers lived off of civilians' bribes. I was told that my grandfather, now a Vietnam veteran with a minor case of shell shock, left his family at age 20 for army service and was held prisoner by the Vietcong for seven strenuous years. I was told that if I choose to stay in my homeland, I would only limit myself to being a lower-class laborer my whole life. Surrounded by barriers, I left the place that I grew up in the first 10 years of my life.
The 9/11 event put fear in me, and those memories gave me the nerves as I stepped on the aircraft in 2002 that would soon carry me to the oblivion straight ahead. But as soon as I reached the City of Brotherly Love, I finally found diversity a salvation to the monotony that I experienced under strict Communist rule. This made me feel more appreciated toward my mother, who has brought me to the land of opportunities so that I can prove the best of my ability by being the first in the family to attend a four-year college and even fulfill my dream of becoming an ophthalmologist. Then I came across Girls' High, which it brings out my abilities into light, giving me the versatility of being both a scholar and an athlete for a 13-mile race. The fearful incidents in the past are still contained within my root, but I do not want to forget them because they are the stepping stones to self-knowledge and they define my diversity in character.
Prompt: A range of academic interest, personal perspective, and life experience adds much to the educational mix. Describe what you bring to the diversity in a college community with your experiences.
The diversity I bring to the college community comes from my observations of the world and the history of my family. I am fortunate enough to live past some of the most tragic events in life.
Having been living in the United States since 2002, I have never gotten the chance like my classmates to experience how America was like when the September 11 attack happened. I was not present when all the schools announced emergency lockdowns and dismissed the adults from their work places, and to experience the patriotism that sprang up from every American heart. I lived in a country where rapacious governments and police officers lived off of civilians' bribes. I was told that my grandfather, now a Vietnam veteran with a minor case of shell shock, left his family at age 20 for army service and was held prisoner by the Vietcong for seven strenuous years. I was told that if I choose to stay in my homeland, I would only limit myself to being a lower-class laborer my whole life. Surrounded by barriers, I left the place that I grew up in the first 10 years of my life.
The 9/11 event put fear in me, and those memories gave me the nerves as I stepped on the aircraft in 2002 that would soon carry me to the oblivion straight ahead. But as soon as I reached the City of Brotherly Love, I finally found diversity a salvation to the monotony that I experienced under strict Communist rule. This made me feel more appreciated toward my mother, who has brought me to the land of opportunities so that I can prove the best of my ability by being the first in the family to attend a four-year college and even fulfill my dream of becoming an ophthalmologist. Then I came across Girls' High, which it brings out my abilities into light, giving me the versatility of being both a scholar and an athlete for a 13-mile race. The fearful incidents in the past are still contained within my root, but I do not want to forget them because they are the stepping stones to self-knowledge and they define my diversity in character.
